CENIEH is a research centre belonging to the national network of Unique Science & Technical Infrastructures (ICTS). The ultimate goal of these infrastructures, which have to pursue a strategic approach and remain available to the whole R&D+i community, is to place the cutting-edge scientific and technical installations that they manage at the disposal of the national and the international scientific, technological, and industrial community.

The access to use the infrastructure is regulated by a Public Access Protocol that describes the mechanism and criteria for access to the infrastructure. There are two types of access to the ICTS:

•  On-demand access: Type  of  access  in  which  applications  may  be  submitted  at  any moment and which are assessed for technical viability by an Internal Panel of the Center. The tariffs for services on the basis of on-demand access shall be  higher than those  for competitive access.
• Competitive  access: Type  of  access  implying  the  submission  of  applications after  an access call. Assessment of the technical viability by an Internal Panel, and evaluation of the scientific  and  technical  qualityand  prioritization by  an  Access  Committee,  most  of whose members are personnel external to the Center.The tariffs for services on the basis of competitive access shall be lower than those for on-demand.

ICTS is therefore open to the entire R+D+i community in all laboratories, offering a percentage of opening the capacity of its outstanding facilities under the 'Competitive Open Access' regime for use by researchers in the public and private sector, national and international, with the support of ICTS' own technical and administrative staff. The main features of  Competitive Open Access are that R+D+i quality of activities developed at the infrastructure should be proven and that requests for access should be prioritized on the basis of objective criteria.

Call prevision in 2024:

In addition, as part of the FIXLAB in the IPERION HS project (Integrating Platforms for the European Research Infrastructure ON Heritage Science), the Geochronology and Computed Microtomography laboratories can be accessed through the periodic and granting calls for transnational access available. The FIXLAB services catalog shows our capabilities and how to submit proposals.

At any time and on the basis of the access modality, the Centre is open to receive specific access requests from the technological-scientific community at user@cenieh.es and to provide assessment in the definition of their applied and technological research projects, during the drafting phase. If these access requests include the use of ICTS and if their project has been approved in competitive calls for research projects at national, European or international levels, then their entrance through Competitive Access will be prioritized for the performance of analyses, for the application of techniques and procedures, and for the use of the installations by the project researchers and/or the technicians.